Author: staff
Published on 02/04/2026 – 14:04 GMT+2 Sweden’s government announced on Thursday that it was investing $916 million (€796 million) in air and drone defence capabilities. The investment would cover multiple systems, such as radar and anti-aircraft weapons systems as well as electronic warfare platforms. The defence package accounts for more than half of money set aside to increase the country’s defence capabilities, as per a government announcement in January. Swedish Defence Minister Pal Johnson said in a statement it was “more important than ever to invest in air defence capabilities,” a stance all countries in the NATO military alliance endorse.…
Published on 25/03/2026 – 17:27 GMT+1•Updated 02/04/2026 – 13:05 GMT+2 The United Nations cultural agency, UNESCO, has issued a fresh warning over the fate of heritage sites in Iran amid the ongoing US-Israeli war. A recent meeting between UNESCO and Lebanon’s Directorate General of Antiquities discussed “immediate measures to strengthen the protection of vulnerable cultural properties across the country,” UNESCO said in a statement. Last week, UNESCO confirmed that “several sites of cultural significance” in the region have been reported as impacted and damaged in the war. They renewed their call for maximum restraint to spare the “social foundation of…
Lebanon was hit by another deadly Israeli strike overnight when a building in Zebdine, near Nabatieh in the south, was reduced to rubble, sending first responders and residents scrambling to search for victims. The attack came just hours after an Israeli raid in Beirut’s Jnah area killed at least five people and wounded 21 others, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. These strikes underline how the conflict is widening inside Lebanese territory, with civilians increasingly exposed even in areas far from the traditional front lines. On Thursday, Hezbollah said it had launched drones and rockets at northern Israel, prompting sirens across…
Published on 02/04/2026 – 12:25 GMT+2 Germany has revealed plans to set up a body to repatriate artworks and artifacts, and human remains acquired in a colonial context. The anticipated ‘Coordination Council for Returns of Cultural Property and Human Remains from Colonial Contexts’ will include representatives from the central government, the country’s 16 states, and various municipalities. “The aim is to make returns processes as transparent as possible and to coordinate communication with international partners,” reads the statement released by the German Federal Foreign Office. The statement follows a top-level meeting held in Berlin last week. Owing to an agreement…
Updated: 02/04/2026 – 12:00 GMT+2 Catch up with the most important stories from around Europe and beyond this April 2nd, 2026 – latest news, breaking news, World, Business, Entertainment, Politics, Culture, Travel. … More
But, he added, “it is clear that once the civil war ended, the time for return has come and the grounds for protection cease to apply.” He declined to provide specific numbers. Approximately 1.23 million people of Syrian origin were registered in Germany at the end of 2024. Of those, 246,320 had acquired German citizenship, leaving close to a million Syrian nationals in Germany at risk of being affected by the proposed large-scale return policy. ‘Indignity and anger’ While the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s autocratic regime in late 2024 sparked jubilation among large segments of the Syrian diaspora across Europe,…
Published on 02/04/2026 – 9:42 GMT+2 Russia fired hundreds of drones at Ukraine on Wednesday, killing at least five people and destroying a postal terminal, Ukrainian officials said. The attacks came a day after the Kremlin rejected a Ukrainian proposal for a temporary ceasefire over Easter. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday he had had a “positive” call with US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner about reviving the peace process. Diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, now in its fifth year, have stalled in recent months, in part because the United States has shifted its focus…
On Ukraine, he hasn’t framed Kyiv as an enemy — but has studiously avoided any positive appraisals, knowing they would play badly at the ballot box. That’s because anti-Ukrainian sentiment is deeply rooted in Hungary. According to an autumn 2025 poll by the Policy Solutions think tank, half of Hungarians consider Ukraine dangerous for Hungary, while 64 percent oppose Ukraine’s EU accession and 74 percent believe the Hungarian government shouldn’t send financial aid to Kyiv. Notably, Zelenskyy is one of the most hated politicians in the country, level with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Péter Magyar really doesn’t have big room…
The amount of untaxed wealth hidden in offshore tax havens by the world’s richest 0.1% exceeds the collective assets of the poorest 4.1 billion people on Earth, an analysis by Oxfam shows. The report released on Thursday highlights that a decade after the Panama Papers leak, the global elite continue to utilise a complex international financial system to move immense fortunes beyond the reach of public scrutiny and taxation. Speaking to Euronews, Christian Hallum, the tax lead at Oxfam, stated that the ultra-rich are still sequestering “oceans of wealth” and warned that this is not merely a matter of clever…
For the first time in more than half a century, humans are venturing back towards the Moon. The Artemis II mission sent four brave astronauts on a journey around the Moon on a 10-day journey on Wednesday, before returning to Earth’s atmosphere at a record speed of approximately 25,000 miles per hour (40,000 km/h). The mission was initially scheduled for February this year, but was delayed until March after engineers detected a new issue with the rocket’s helium system. A few weeks later, agency officials said the flow of helium to the rocket’s upper stage was interrupted, pushing the mission…